I'm confused by all the criticism of the graphics in use in the Mesopotamia Welcoming Message. I was asked to test it, which I did in IE 6, IE 7, Netscape 7.1, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.9 and Mozilla 1.5 (which is quite old and not at all the same as Mozilla Firefox).

In all five browsers, the graphics are crisp and clean, the text is quite clear and legible, there is no obscuring "darkness" and no "failure to communicate."

The colors in the two versions of IE and in Netscape are somewhat different from the colors in Firefox and Mozilla—I would not call the Firefox and Mozilla colors "dark" however. I'd call them "different in intensity." Like the difference between color #CCFF33 color #CCFF00 on the Icon Bazaar Color Tables.

Is it possible that the monitor color temperature has been set incorrectly on your monitor? Color temperature of 5400 Kelvin is considered to be "daylight balanced." My monitor is set at 6500 Kelvin, the other most common setting. Some monitors default to much cooler color temperature (as low as 9000 Kelvin), which is not an optimum setting because it is not "true" or "daylight balanced."

I reset my color temperature to as low as 9300, and although the colors were indeed somewhat "darker," everything was still perfectly clear and legible.

Is it possible that the video card/adaptor is not running in "high color mode"? (If it isn't, that ought to be altered.)